5. *_Matilda_ is a fine woman, of good _breeding_, and great _sense_. She has three daughters that are educated by herself. She will not trust them with any one else, or at any _school_, for fear they should learn any thing ill. She stays with the _dancing-master_ all the time he is with them, because she will hear every thing that is said to them. She has heard them read the scriptures so often, that they can repeat great part of it without book: and there is scarce a good book of _devotion_, but you may find it in their _closets_.
Had _Matilda_ lived in the first ages of Christianity, she had in all probability been one of the greatest saints. But as she was born in corrupt times, where she hardly ever saw a piety higher than her own; so she has many defects, and communicates them all to her daughters.
6. _Matilda_ never was _meanly_ dressed in her life; and nothing pleases her in _dress_, but that which is very _rich_, and _beautiful_ to the eye.
Her daughters see her great zeal for religion, but then they see an equal earnestness for all sorts of _finery_. They see she is not negligent of her _devotion_; but then they see her more careful to preserve her _complexion_, and to prevent those changes which time and age threaten her with.
They are afraid to meet her, if they have missed the _church_; but then they are more afraid to see her, if they are not _laced_ as _straight_ as they can possibly be.
She often shews them her _own picture_, which was taken when their father fell in love with her. She tells them how _distracted_ he was with passion at the _first sight_ of her; and that she had never had so _fine_ a _complexion_, but for the diligence of her good mother, who took exceeding care of it.
The children see so plainly _the temper_ of their mother, that they affect to be _more pleased_ with dress, than they really are.
They saw their eldest sister once brought to her _tears_, and her _perverseness_ severely reprimanded, for presuming to say, that she thought it was better to cover the _neck_, than to go so _far naked_ as the modern dress requires.
7. She stints them in their _meals_, and is very scrupulous of what they eat and drink, and tells them how many _fine shapes_ she has seen spoiled in her time for want of such care.
Whenever they begin to look _sanguine_ and _healthful_, she calls in the assistance of the _doctor_; and if _physic_, or _issues_, will keep the complexion from inclining to _coarse_ or _ruddy_, she thinks them well employed.
By this means they are _poor_, _pale_, _sickly_, _infirm_ creatures, _vapoured_ through want of spirits, _crying_ at the smallest accidents, _swooning_ away at any thing that frights them, and hardly able to bear the _weight_ of their best cloaths.
The eldest daughter lived as long as she could under this discipline, and died in the twentieth year of her age.
When her body was opened, it appeared that her _ribs_ had grown into her _liver_, and that her other _entrails_ were much hurt, by being _crushed_ together with her _stays_; which her mother had ordered to be twitched so strait, that it has often brought tears into her eyes, whilst the maid was dressing her.
Her youngest daughter is run away with a _gamester_, a man of great beauty, who in _dressing_ and _dancing_ has no superior.
_Matilda_ says, she should die with grief at this accident, but that her _conscience_ tells her, she has contributed nothing to it herself. She appeals to their _closets_, to their books of devotion, to testify what care she has taken to establish her children in piety.
8. Now, tho’ I don’t intend to say, that no daughters are brought up in a _better way_ than this; yet thus much may be said, that the greater part of them are not brought up so well, or accustomed to so much religion.
Their minds are turned as much to the care of their beauty and dress, without having such rules of devotion to stand against it. So that if _solid_ piety is much wanted in that sex, it is the plain consequence of a corrupt education.
And if they are often ready to receive the first _fops_, _beaux_, and fine _dancers_, for their husbands, ’tis no wonder that they should like that in men, which they have been taught to admire in themselves.
Some people will perhaps say, that I am exercising too great a severity against the sex.
But reasonable persons will observe, that I spare the _sex_, and only arraign their _education_; that I not only spare them, but plead their _interest_, assert their _honour_, and only condemn that _education_ which is so _injurious_ thereto.
Their education I cannot spare; but the only reason is, because it is their _greatest enemy_, because it deprives the world of so many _blessings_, and the church of so many _saints_.
If it should here be said, that I even charge _too high_ upon their _education_, and that they are not so _much_ hurt by it, as I imagine.